Notice to Aliens of Enemy Nationalities
February 9, 1942
Courtesy National Archives Catalog
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This U. S. Department of Justice notice directed aliens of German, Italian,
and Japanese nationalities to apply for a Certificate of Identification by February 28, 1942
Soon to be
sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, President Elect Donald
Trump has advocated establishing a registry for Muslim residents in the United
States and a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants to United States—components of
a war on terror.
On this day,
January 14, we look at the alien registry of 1942, a precursor to events across
the nation during World War II, which had significant impact on our state’s Japanese
American citizens during the war.
January 14,
1942: Only five and a half weeks after Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor triggering
U.S. entry into World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Presidential
Proclamation No. 2537. The proclamation required non-citizens of enemy
nationality—Italians, Germans, and Japanese—aged 14 and older to register with
the United States Department of Justice. These individuals then would be issued
a Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality.
Friedrich Roetter’s Application for Certificate of Identification, 1942
Courtesy jewishfamilieshistory.org
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Proclamation
No. 2537 also sanctioned measures of control over the travel and conduct of
aliens, including property ownership rights, and allowed the arrest, detention,
and internment of aliens who were in violation of federally designated
restricted areas.
The proclamation, in fact, was a follow-up—a second registration as it
were—for those aliens who had registered earlier with the 1940 Alien
Registration Act, a national security measure. Preliminary tabulations from
this Act identified the enemy alien population in the United States as at least
315,000 Germans, nearly 700,000 Italians, and 92,000 Japanese.
Heigoro Endo’s Alien Registration Card, 1940
Courtesy The Endo Family
|
As U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle noted in a broadcast, the
certificate was to be
used “at all times and in all places, for the duration of the war.” Explaining
his position he said, “I describe the identification
programs as another part of the job of making America safe—safety for the
nation against the small minority of alien enemies who may be contemplating
trouble, and safety for the great majority of aliens who are above suspicion.”
A little over a million aliens of German, Italian, and Japanese origin
registered.
Toyo Miyatake, Boys Behind Barbed Wire, 1944
Courtesy of Alan Miyatake
|
Proclamation
No. 2537 ushered in an era of what today is considered a national shame: the relocation and incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans and
residents of Japanese descent living in the Pacific Coast region. A month after
its issue, on February 19, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the War Department to set aside military areas from which Japanese
Americans were excluded, thus paving away for the establishment of “internment”
camps to which they were forcibly removed. For the duration of the war these
men, women, and children—most of them U.S. citizens—lived in prison camps in California, Wyoming, Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas.
Also sent to
camps throughout the country were approximately 11,507
German Americans, an estimated 4,500
ethnic Germans and Italians from Latin America, and non-citizen Italian-born individuals, especially Italian diplomats, businessmen, and international
students. These camps were operated by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
German and Italian migrants leaving Philadelphia for a camp in Butte, Montana, August 1941
Associated Press; courtesy of sfgate.com
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Despite his advocacy of the Enemy Alien Certificate of
Identification, U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle offered a
measure of caution. “Let
us not be hasty in our judgment of them. Let us not deprive them of their jobs,”
he said. “Let us not be suspicious of them unless we have grounds for
suspicion. Let us not persecute these people as an outlet of our emotions
against the bandits who are at the moment in control of the nations where they
were born.”
As the United States revisits its foreign policy and
protocols in a war against terror, and as President Elect Trump’s position
continues to invite controversy, Biddle’s words are frighteningly relevant.
Shelly Kale
Publications and Strategic Projects Manager
Sources
Francis Biddle, Identification of Alien Enemies, an address by
the Honorable Francis Biddle, Attorney General of the United States, on Sunday
February 1, 1942, 7:15 to 7:30 pm, E.S.T. over the Columbia Broadcasting System, Washington, D. C.;
Karen E.
Ebel, Timeline, German American Internees in the United States during WWII; http://www.traces.org/timeline.aftermath.html
Lynn Goodsell, “World
War II Enemy Aliens Program: Notice to Aliens of
Enemy Nationalities,” Oct. 13, 15, 2009, National Archives, Washington, DC;
Abby Phillip and
Abigail Hauslohner, “Trump on the future of proposed Muslim ban, registry,” Washington Post, December 12, 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/12/21/trump-on-the-future-of-proposed-muslim-ban-registry-you-know-my-plans/?utm_term=.4a50d9fc558e
United States Department of Justice,
“Regulations Controlling Travel and Other Conduct of Aliens of Enemy
Nationalities,” February 5, 1942 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1942); http://gaic.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DoJ-regs.enemy-aliens.1942.JPG.pdf
__________________________________________________________________________
Don’t
miss this CHS event commemorating the 75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066:
Thursday, February 23, 2017, 6:00pm
Celebrating the California Historical Society’s 1972
Landmark Exhibition and Book,
Executive Order
9066
Please join the California Historical Society as we celebrate our
landmark 1972 exhibition and book of historic photographs, Executive Order 9066. The first to exclusively explore the World
War II incarceration of Japanese American citizens and people of Japanese
descent, the exhibition premiered at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor and UC
Berkeley’s University Art Museum before it traveled nationally. Our program
will include individuals and descendants of those who visited the exhibition
along with the curator of the Dorothea Lange collection at the Oakland Museum
of California (OMCA). The program will be moderated
by historian Charles Wollenberg.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Read
More about Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American incarceration on the CHS
Blog:
It Can’t Happen Here - Executive Order 9066 Revisited
Day of Remembrance: Executive Order 9066 and the Incarceration
of Japanese Americans during World War II
This Day in History: California Celebrates Fred Korematsu
This Day in History - August 10: The U.S. Rights a Wrong
http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2015/08/this-day-in-history-august-10-us-rights.html
70 Years Ago Today: World War II Incarceration Camp at Manzanar
Closes
Uncovering History through Art and Artifacts: Japanese
Internment
Presidential Proclamation No. 2537
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